Bangladesh’s Dutch head coach Lodewijk de Kruif emphasised on working on the technical and tactical aspects of the national footballers after arriving in Dhaka on Friday morning.
Kruif began his work with the national team in the afternoon the same day and discussed with the players about their current condition and also their performances in the recently-concluded Super Cup.
‘From now on, we will work on the technical and tactical aspects. We have got 35 players. I will select 23 players sometime in the next week,’ Kruif said after the training session.
The Dutch coach also announced his plan regarding the SAFF Football Championship to reporters.
‘With those 23 players we will have a training camp in Thailand and hopefully we will play two practice matches there and come back to continue the camp and that is my plan,’ added Kruif, who is awaiting the regional tournament which is set to get underway from September 1.
In the first training session, Kruif witnessed the shooting ability of the players as he said this is the most important feature of attack besides set-pieces.
Kruif refused to point out the negatives after officially beginning his reign. ‘We won’t say negative or weak things. I want to communicate in a very positive way and we have a lot of work ahead and we have to work hard and that’s our job,’ he said.
The Dutchman has picked a large number of players in his squad after observing nine matches of the Super Cup and he was convinced all the country’s prime footballers were selected.
‘In the Super Cup we saw nine matches in five days that gave us a very good impression of the players and the quality of the players. That was very important because when we move to Nepal for the AFC Challenge Cup qualifiers, we do have much information about the players.
‘We just saw them for two or three days before taking them to Nepal. Now we have a very good impression about the players,’ Kruif added.
The draw ceremony of the SAFF tournament will be held on July 31.
‘The fixtures of the SAFF Championship will be announced on July 31 and then we will see who will be our opponents and from that moment, we will put our attention on the opponents,’ said Kruif.
‘It was my first day and I was watching the fitness level of the players,’ he added.
Kruif was happy to see Mohammet Yamali, the physiotherapist, who arrived a week ago with Rene Koster, the assistant coach.
‘I am very happy that physical trainer Yamali is here. Rene and he started the training few days back. When we took the team to Nepal to play the AFC Challenge Cup qualifiers, there were some physical problems with the players.
‘The players’ body and mind both should be ready for playing international football with professionalism. That’s why I am very happy that the physical trainer is with the squad now. He had already five days with Rene to prepare the players and gave them an idea of what they should expect from us,’ said Kruif.
The Dutch coach was, however, concerned with the hilly conditions of SAFF hosts Nepal and said that they might travel early to adapt to the conditions and altitude of the venues.
Meanwhile, assistant coach Koster was satisfied with the young players who did well in the blip test, which was organised on Friday morning. Defender Nahidul Islam finished first, defender Nasiruddin Chowdhury came second while expatriate footballer Jamal Bhuiyan, the Denmark-based midfielder, finished third.
-With New Age input
